3 ms·

DCT, FFT, close enough I guess. No mention of Shannon or Nyquist? Ugh, I see a trend starting here: "This is the first in a new experimental series called Fav

by tacos 11y ago

DCT, FFT, close enough I guess. No mention of Shannon or Nyquist? Ugh, I see a trend starting here: "This is the first in a new experimental series called Favored Equation. Each month, we’ll dive into a piece of math which makes your life easier in some way without you even realizing." This is a spin on http://objectsobjectsobjects.com/ http://objectsobjectsobjects.com/ by The Atlantic: "Object lessons: An ongoing series about the hidden lives of ordinary things." I'm a fan of this type of writing. But when Sagan and Feynman did it -- hell when pornographers did it with OMNI Magazine -- it wasn't quite so rough around the edges. I'm now a month into arguing with some ex-Gawker hack at The Atlantic over quotes like "New effects can change a guitarist’s playing ability completely" and a declaration that the transistor was invented in the 1960s. No corrections or retractions imminent. No interest in battling the newer, younger, even-less-experienced Gawker editor too.

disantlor 11y ago
Tangent but I disagree about one point: Effects can and do change the guitarist's playing ability. Distortion or compression, for example, generally lowers the threshold for making a note sound clearly (or at least clear enough). The result is a smoother sounding performance which can give the player more confidence when then actually results in a better performance. It hardly matters how you get to the end waveforms if they are indeed sounding good. But more than interpreting "ability" to mean a degree of technical skill, certain effects can completely change the way a good guitar player approaches the instrument creatively, particularly if they're listening closely and reacting (not playing from muscle memory).
- tacos 11y ago
  Rephrase it as "colored pencils can change a writer's writing ability completely" and you can see the logic error. "Put a little reverb on it" is a good way to comfort a singer or a musician and perhaps coax a better performance out of them. But the effect itself does not change the skill level of the performer. If the article were discussing production techniques I'd agree with you. But it says things like "Guitar effects have modified their users" and gives a comical explanation of how a rotating speaker works so I think the author is just nuts.
  - tlb 11y ago
    Rotating speakers don't require less player skill, but distortion does. Guitar distortion reduces the need to mute adjacent strings, a very difficult thing to master, because only the strongest tone comes through. Or, given equal skill, distortion meant you could jump around, play writhing on your back with your tongue, play with your guitar on fire, which you absolutely cannot playing without distortion.
    - tacos 11y ago
      Distortion adds harmonic content. It is not a filter that lets "only the strongest tone come through." If there's a 600Hz thump as you move your hand between strings, now you've got that same 600Hz thump plus a 1200Hz and 1800Hz thump too. That's the definition of harmonic distortion. And those 1200/1800Hz components are approaching where the ear is most sensitive. So you've made it worse. A previous poster said that compression helps. Well, no. Compression reduces dynamic range. If there's a soft squeak between loud notes, a compressor makes the soft squeak louder and the loud note quieter. That's the definition of a compressor. And none of this changes the fundamental skill of the performer, in the same way that an Instagram filter does not change the fundamental beauty of the object. Sure, presentation is important and changing your resume font might even get you a better coding job. But changing the font doesn't make you a better coder.
      - disantlor 11y ago
        IMO The only fundamental skill that is relevant to music is the ability to express a particular feeling, and effects can "completely change" one's ability to do that. The only way you could quantify the type of skill you seem to be referring to is to entirely remove any degree of expression or improvisation (or effects) and boil it down to the raw performance data. You may then succeed in determining who is objectively a "better" musician but you've lost all the aspects that make a Beatles song based on a I IV V chord progression sound different than one by the Velvet Underground, or anyone else. EDIT: also, yes to some degree that is how harmonic distortion works, though the particular harmonics and amplitudes of those harmonics vary widely and there is often some filtering added to reign in those harmonics in a particular way. Distortion also effectively compresses the signal. Sometimes it starts oscillating and generating notes that aren't even being played. The point is that if you're playing with the distortion (not just laying it on top) then it is changing how you play.

by tacos 11y ago

disantlor 11y ago

Tangent but I disagree about one point: Effects can and do change the guitarist's playing ability. Distortion or compression, for example, generally lowers the threshold for making a note sound clearly (or at least clear enough). The result is a smoother sounding performance which can give the player more confidence when then actually results in a better performance. It hardly matters how you get to the end waveforms if they are indeed sounding good. But more than interpreting "ability" to mean a degree of technical skill, certain effects can completely change the way a good guitar player approaches the instrument creatively, particularly if they're listening closely and reacting (not playing from muscle memory).

tacos 11y ago
Rephrase it as "colored pencils can change a writer's writing ability completely" and you can see the logic error. "Put a little reverb on it" is a good way to comfort a singer or a musician and perhaps coax a better performance out of them. But the effect itself does not change the skill level of the performer. If the article were discussing production techniques I'd agree with you. But it says things like "Guitar effects have modified their users" and gives a comical explanation of how a rotating speaker works so I think the author is just nuts.
- tlb 11y ago
  Rotating speakers don't require less player skill, but distortion does. Guitar distortion reduces the need to mute adjacent strings, a very difficult thing to master, because only the strongest tone comes through. Or, given equal skill, distortion meant you could jump around, play writhing on your back with your tongue, play with your guitar on fire, which you absolutely cannot playing without distortion.
  - tacos 11y ago
    Distortion adds harmonic content. It is not a filter that lets "only the strongest tone come through." If there's a 600Hz thump as you move your hand between strings, now you've got that same 600Hz thump plus a 1200Hz and 1800Hz thump too. That's the definition of harmonic distortion. And those 1200/1800Hz components are approaching where the ear is most sensitive. So you've made it worse. A previous poster said that compression helps. Well, no. Compression reduces dynamic range. If there's a soft squeak between loud notes, a compressor makes the soft squeak louder and the loud note quieter. That's the definition of a compressor. And none of this changes the fundamental skill of the performer, in the same way that an Instagram filter does not change the fundamental beauty of the object. Sure, presentation is important and changing your resume font might even get you a better coding job. But changing the font doesn't make you a better coder.
    - disantlor 11y ago
      IMO The only fundamental skill that is relevant to music is the ability to express a particular feeling, and effects can "completely change" one's ability to do that. The only way you could quantify the type of skill you seem to be referring to is to entirely remove any degree of expression or improvisation (or effects) and boil it down to the raw performance data. You may then succeed in determining who is objectively a "better" musician but you've lost all the aspects that make a Beatles song based on a I IV V chord progression sound different than one by the Velvet Underground, or anyone else. EDIT: also, yes to some degree that is how harmonic distortion works, though the particular harmonics and amplitudes of those harmonics vary widely and there is often some filtering added to reign in those harmonics in a particular way. Distortion also effectively compresses the signal. Sometimes it starts oscillating and generating notes that aren't even being played. The point is that if you're playing with the distortion (not just laying it on top) then it is changing how you play.